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Will oil spill reach Florida, Cuba?

Scientists are surveying the Gulf oil spill to determine if the oil had entered a powerful current that could take it to Florida, Cuba and eventually the Atlantic.

Collected oil burns on the water in this aerial view seven miles northeast of the Deepwater Horizon site over the Gulf of Mexico, May 18, 2010. (HO / Reuters)

By The Associated Press

Wed., May 19, 2010

WASHINGTON — Tar balls that washed ashore in the Florida Keys were not from a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard said Wednesday, but that did little to soothe fears a blown-out well gushing a mile underwater could spread damage along the coast from Louisiana to Florida.

The U.S. and Cuba were holding talks on how to respond to the spill, a U.S. State Department official said, underscoring worries about the oil reaching a strong current that could carry it to the Florida Keys and the pristine white beaches of Cuba’s northern coast.

The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Oil has been spewing since the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded off the Louisiana coast April 20, killing 11 workers, and sank two days later.

Government scientists, meanwhile, were surveying the Gulf to determine if the oil had entered a powerful current that could take it to Florida and Cuba and eventually up the East Coast. Questions remained about just how much oil is spilling from the well.

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New underwater video released by BP showed oil and gas erupting under pressure in large, dark clouds from its crippled blowout preventer on the ocean floor. The leaks resembled a geyser on land.

BP and the Coast Guard have said about 210,000 gallons of oil a day is gushing from the well, but professors who have watched the video and others say they believe the amount is much higher.

Steve Wereley, a mechanical engineer at Purdue University in Indiana, said he is sticking with his estimate that 3.9 million gallons a day is spewing from two leaks.

His estimate of the amount leaked to date, which he calls conservative and says has a margin of error of plus or minus 20 percent, is 126 million gallons — or more than 11 times the total leaked from the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. The official estimate is closer to 6 million gallons.

Another researcher, Timothy Crone of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said the latest video suggested a leak of at least 840,000 to 4.2 million gallons a day, though poor video quality made it difficult to come up with an accurate figure.

BP has tried several unsuccessful methods to contain the oil, but earlier this week managed to insert a tube into one of the leaks and says it has been sucking about 42,000 gallons a day to the surface.

BP is preparing to shoot a mixture known as drilling mud into the well later this week in a procedure called a “top-kill” that would take several weeks but, if successful, would stop the flow altogether. Two relief wells are also being drilled to pump cement into the well to close it, but that will take months.

U.S and Cuban officials are holding “working level” talks on how to respond to the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill that is believed to be dumping some 5,000 barrels of crude a day into the Gulf of Mexico, two State Department officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

They are also a rare moment of cooperation between two countries locked in conflict for more than half a century.

“I can confirm that they are ongoing and going on at the working level,” State Department Spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters in Washington. “It is incumbent upon us to inform all of our neighbors, not just the islands, but those countries that could be affected by disasters that happen within our territorial waters.’’

Another State Department official had previously discussed the talks with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Neither would say where the talks were taking place, or what specifically was being discussed.

It was not clear if the U.S. has offered assistance to Havana in the event the oil hits Cuban beaches, or if officials here would accept. In 2005, then-President Fidel Castro offered the U.S. medical assistance after Hurricane Katrina, including sending Cuban doctors to treat storm victims. The State Department declined the offer.

There was no immediate comment from Cuban authorities on the oil spill talks.

Also Wednesday, the Bahamian government said it would seek to recover costs from BP PLC — the oil giant that owns a majority interest in the blown well that caused the disaster — if the crude spill spreads to Bahamian waters and a clean-up operation is required.

“Any money that is spent in a possible clean-up the government would be looking to be reimbursed, and the entire exercise being paid for by BP,” said Commander Patrick McNeil, head of the Bahamas National Oil Spill Contingency team.

Relations between the United States and Cuba are at a low, despite optimism that President Barack Obama would usher in a new spirit of cooperation. Still, the two countries have pushed to improve cooperation in dealing with natural disasters and fighting drug trafficking, and have resumed twice-yearly conversations on immigration.

Coast Guard officials from the two countries maintain regular contact on a variety of maritime issues.

Scientists have expressed increasing worry that the oil will get caught up in the so-called loop current, a ribbon of warm water that begins in the Gulf of Mexico and wraps around Florida. Some say the current could even draw the crude through the Keys and then up Florida’s Atlantic Coast, where it could wash up around Palm Beach.

Yonggang Liu, a researcher at University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science, told AP on Wednesday that if the oil is in the loop current, Cuba’s north coast could also be endangered.

“The Florida Strait is very narrow,” said Liu. “The local wind effect could bring the oil across the strait to Cuba.’’

Other USF marine researchers think there’s also a possibility that the oil could flow directly to Cuba’s northern shore before flowing back up to the Florida Keys.

The island’s cash-strapped economy relies heavily on tourists, and most come for a chance to bask in the sun at white-sand beach resorts like Varadero along the northern coast. A loss of any of that income could be devastating, as Cuba is already reeling from the damage done by three 2008 hurricanes, as well as the effects of the global economic crisis.

Cuban state media has reported daily on the oil spill — and Fidel Castro decried the ecological disaster in an opinion piece as evidence the world’s capitalist governments are in thrall to large corporations.

But authorities have been remarkably quiet about what effect the spill might have on the island.

Orlando Rey, an Environment Ministry scientist, said on May 5 that the spill did not appear to be a threat to Cuba, despite early reports the oil might get caught up in the loop.

But there has been no update since then, despite the growing alarm coming from U.S. scientific circles.

The government has not responded to a request from The Associated Press for more information, and officials at several Cuban maritime and meteorological institutes have said they have no further information.

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